35 Running
by an awesome blossom
Summary: MULTI-CHAPTER, ALTERNATE UNIVERSE.  You can have your dreams, and you can have your schemes, but people are the most unpredictable beings this side of the galaxy.  Life rarely goes according to plan.
1. Chapter 1

**Thirty-Five Running  
><strong>_an awesome blossom_

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><p><strong>T<strong>here were few things that interfered with productivity more than the memory of a cool gun pressed soundly against the temple. While it never fired - hell, it might not have had any bullets in it - the fear and suggestion of the **potential** of it was enough to give up and into demands.

She was not, and would not be, ashamed of handing over the Triforce of Wisdom, but it was not on record as one of her proudest moments. What ruler, what _divine sovereign_, was she to not have utmost faith in Thirds? Two pieces of the Triforce could not exist for long without the Third joining company, and it was one of the basic foundations learned about Hylian lore.

Zelda knew this;

Ganondorf knew this;

Link did not.

Yet the sovereign knew she was alive with the most fearsome crime boss in Hyrule behind barrier because the **calling** the One, the Catalyst, the _Hero_ felt transcended acute knowledge of scripture and myth. It was a joke immediately thrown into the faces of every last member of the Royal Guard that the kingdom's savior was instead a mere carpenter; their state-of-the-art weaponry and high salaries courtesy of a bloated budget were not enough to take down the mark and rescue the high-profile hostage, but the simple efforts of this boy, barely eighteen and armed only with a hammer and knife at first, _were_.

The media was in the dark as to why and how this happened: the papers were filled with extraneous tales of heroism by the boy, editorials debating the competence and efficiency of the Guard's administration, numerous sensationalist reports about every aspect of the story imaginable… And yet only a handful of them ever really scratched the truth by suggesting the answers lay within the tales of the Triad and the rule of Three.

These stories were taken as seriously as claims of mythical Zora sightings because divine magic and destiny had no place in the age of guns and television.

Zelda stilled her pen because she needed a break - a very long break.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thirty-Five Running**  
><em>an awesome blossom<em>

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><p><strong>W<strong>ar in the East, high-fashion in the West, religious nut jobs to the North, and drug bust after drug bust back home in the good ol' South. It was all Douglas could do to keep from going back into space, and even that was a dump nowadays with the Global Military Force's occupation.

The establishment of much-needed law and order up there wasn't what ruined space; it was bureaucracy. There were background checks for the travelers; vast, restricted areas; safety precautions after safety precautions because "Goddesses" forbid anyone have any fun out there… Sure, Douglas understood the necessity of it all since he was certain that he and the forcefully-disbanded ICD unintentionally had a hand in the creation of sanction after sanction, but what bothered him the most were the _forms_. There were forms to change location, forms to import goods from the globe, forms to fill out forms, and there were probably even forms to take a piss.

…Not that ex-Captain Douglas Jay Falcon had the ability to relocate anywhere in space since he, among others, had been unilaterally banned from the **entire god'damned area** once the GMF, and subsequently the IPF, flew in, but it was always nice to pretend that one had options.

Options were what kept Douglas in Port Town where he was born, and options were what had him coming to the same hole-in-the-wall bar every night that he could since the Space Reclamation. After all, it was there that he became a man, realized that all he wanted to do was race after his release from incarceration, and, most importantly, where he met the most beautiful yet unattainable woman in the entire fucking galaxy:

**Samus Aran**.

Douglas Falcon could recreate every detail about that night in his mind, but he could never bring himself to do it for fear that she would somehow come back and kick him in the balls for losing himself to pointless nostalgia. He was half-tempted to anyway just to bring her back, but the state of his testicles were more important since he still harbored hopes of becoming a father one day. _Priorities_. It would be a shitty night for reminiscing anyway, Douglas quickly realized as he situated himself in the same stool with the same drink with the same bartender as he had for ages.

Without being conspicuous about it, he noted two key men among the regulars:

One was a gruff-looking stranger who looked as if he could have been a nightly patron - yet stood out because he wasn't. Weary faces like his were a dime a dozen there, but what was distinct about him was a bandana tied around his forehead. It was such an oddly specific thing to wear that he couldn't help but wonder about it - and about _him_. Who wore those nowadays? Sure, you had some military grunts that would wear them during training exercises, but what high-class pieces of shit would be caught dead in this dive bar? IPF goons swarmed the North and West; there in the South was no man's land - it was _Douglas's_ land. Despite the bandana, though, the stranger couldn't be pegged as a member of the Internova Police Force. His mien was haunted and worn, not green with a gun up his ass. Of course, Douglas could have gone over and asked him about the god'damned thing, but while he never had a problem opening his big mouth, he wasn't _stupid_. The man had an air of bodies and the tragedy of life around him; men like that were fucking dangerous (and men like that were in good company).

The other man - or _kid_ he should say - couldn't have been more noticeable in the joint if he tried. What made it hilarious to Douglas was that it was obvious that the kid was trying _so hard_ to not be noticed. Was he even old enough to drink? It didn't matter in a place like that, but the wannabe-father in him was concerned. Yeah, Douglas Jay Falcon, GMF's former _(Second) Most Wanted_, was getting all parental at this kid's sorry condition. Even the green, drawn-up hood attached to his jacket (some bullshit West thing, probably) couldn't hide his youthful, fair hair and skin. No, if he was serious about fitting in then he would have dirtied himself up; as it was, the kid was just plain naïve. And probably stupid, too. Douglas felt for the boy, really, because it was always the stupid kids who learned too early and too harshly about the shitty sides of life - and the ex-captain had been one stupid-as-fuck kid back then, too. Hell, all of the men among them had been the most idiotic of boys. If they hadn't, they wouldn't be sitting on their asses drinking all night to a sad song not a one of them could recognize.

Douglas had drank enough already that night that he _almost_ told the kid to come over so he could give him some life advice, which was actually just him rambling ineffectually about his past until the barkeep would get ticked at some jab and tell him to shut the hell up or get out ("get out" was always the hardest yet most reasonable option since at that point in the drink Douglas would have little to no control over whatever boasting bullshit spewed from his lips).

Almost.

See, the funny, romantic thing about _almost_ is that it creates a fantasy for quiet moments - an unexplored avenue of what-ifs and regrets when the mind is procrastinating deeper concerns. With _almost_ around, Douglas would never have to wonder how the hell he would get himself out of some mess and would, instead, think back to that point in his life and think about how life would have been had he done that one thing differently.

…Such has how his life would have differed if he had talked to the kid instead of catching a glimpse of a woman with long, blonde hair standing outside of the bar - and sliding off his stool to go meet her before he could fully process what he was doing.

He knew why his legs and heart always carried him to women like that, and it was stupid. Most men that came from that bar would have told Douglas that it was stupid upfront and advised him to stay the hell away from the fairer sex with decades of heartbreak and regrets to back their words, but he was a stupid man for other reasons that they would never know. It wasn't lust that drove him; it was adrenaline and _adventure_. There had been no great fuck-up in his life that a woman got him into that Douglas wanted to get out of, and he was confident that this woman, should she let him so much as speak to her, would be no different.

While throwing a murmur about some tab behind him and the door open in front of him, Douglas was primed for this night-altering encounter. He was ready to change his god'damned life again because he had options. But when he stared right into the face of the fearless young woman he couldn't help but compare all others to, Douglas knew he wasn't prepared for **anything** that was to come.

After all, there was no such thing as an eased mind when it came to being in the presence of Samus Aran.


	3. Chapter 3

**Thirty-Five Running  
><strong>_an awesome blossom_

**T**here it was: the limousine and their _escape_. She only had to endure the boastful chatter of School Administrator #2507 and respond with scripted answers while fielding the harder, more thoughtful ones for a little while longer. It was eight yards away, thereabouts. Or maybe seven. Six. Nine? She was a princess; she had to be skilled in public appearances and the art of banal conversation, not judging distances. The point was that it was _too_ far away, and she was too important to close the distance on her own without it being a part of the schedule. Temporary relief was due to come in five minutes. Princess Peach Toadstool of the Mushroom Kingdom was patient enough to wait until then.

When she finally found herself in the safe confines of the limousine some fifty-odd hours later it felt (though in reality it was only five minutes thanks to the ever-important _schedule_) she couldn't remember exactly what had transpired in those minutes. It wasn't odd or worrying, though; she rarely could, not when she wanted so desperately to be somewhere else. But it wasn't as if she could let down her hair inside her all-important transportation that slowed Kingdom traffic down to a crawl every time she made a public appearance. There were attendants outlining the rest of the day and congratulating her on what a great cardboard speech she gave to the little toads of Public School #Whatever, there was her longtime steward quietly cursing the traffic their very existence had created (though he was not as subtle as he would have liked in this endeavor), and then there was the Mushroom Kingdom's legendary hero, looking as out-of-place as ever.

Mario.

Back in the good old days, Mario was just a plumber who had taken a fancy to doing the right thing and rescuing Peach whenever she had been kidnapped. But the public fell in love with the sensationalized stories that spread like wildfire, and their hero quickly found that he could no longer return to the quiet life he had with his brother. Against his will he had been dragged into the public eye in punishment for his good deeds.

Her attendants loved Mario's inclusion in the princess's public appearances (perhaps they felt safer from threats against her highness), but to Peach it made her entourage feel a little more cramped - and it was already too big for her to begin with. But today Peach was in luck; there was an hour to kill before she needed to prepare for a fundraiser that evening. Sure, that hour included the uncomfortable ride back to the castle, but these days she made due with what she had. After all, she was itching to get home and check her text messages on her private cell phone.


End file.
